


in a vault of starlight

by whimsicalimages



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Heroine's Journey, Historical Inaccuracy, James Flint Finds Peace, M/M, Multi, OT4, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-10-15 07:31:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10552480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whimsicalimages/pseuds/whimsicalimages
Summary: The distance between Nassau and Savannah can be measured as: six hundred and thirteen nautical miles, five thousand pounds’ worth of pearls, or four extraordinary lifetimes.Alternatively: in the aftermath, Madi writes her own story.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Did I spend the past four days since the finale in a fugue state writing this? Yes. Do I regret that decision? Not even a little bit. 
> 
> As usual, thanks to [A](https://hellaarabella.tumblr.com) for cheerleading and beta-reading. The title is once again from Conrad Aiken's [Tetelestai](http://voetica.com/voetica.php?collection=1&poet=9&poem=962) which remains the single most Flint poem in the world (though it arguably also qualifies as a Silver poem). This can be read as a prequel to my [other BS OT4 fic,](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9941162) which is half the reason I changed the name of the plantation owner; the other half is that I don't know shit about the historical Oglethorpe. (It does function as a standalone, though.) It also follows directly on 4.10, and therefore, obviously, contains spoilers. Hope y'all enjoy!

He is sitting on the cliff where he and Flint had their swordfighting lessons – Madi has suspected that this is the place he’s been going. The sea breaks gently here, the sky is wide and blue, and John Silver is a hunched spot against the landscape, crutch at his side. The cliff faces due north, towards the continent. Towards Savannah.

She is not ready to forgive him, but she thinks it will take far longer for him to forgive himself, despite his alleged lack of remorse.

Silver looks at her and she looks back, considering. This is the same mixture of emotions Flint must have felt, standing here and knowing what he knew about this man’s heart: the anticipation of betrayal, the heaviness of longing, the trust which he chose to keep regardless.

All great deeds and all beginnings require a leap of faith. She walks forward and folds to sit down next to him.

Silver remains silent for once, eyes searching her face for some sort of clue. She stays still, revealing nothing. She doesn’t know how long it will take for her to unmake the mask that her rage has cast on her. Months. Years.

This is a start at chipping it away.

“You are not forgiven,” Madi begins.

“Didn’t expect that I would be, yet. I said I’d wait forever, and I meant it,” Silver replies.

Madi sighs. She has no plans to wait forever, though it is a powerful thing to grasp John Silver’s hope in her hands in this moment, and she remains angry enough to keep him waiting. For now. Oh, she thinks she is starting to understand, but she is still angry.

“I want you to take me to him. To Flint,” Madi says. “To this plantation which you consigned him to.”

“Take you to – it’s not exactly a place that opens for visitors,” Silver says, blinking in bemusement.

“I do not care,” Madi says. “I am not ready to forgive you, but I may be ready to believe you enough to get us there.”

If all is as Silver says, if Flint and Thomas have reunited in seclusion, at the mercy of a wealthy man’s ideals, toiling to atone for their defiance of society – she does not think the man she knew would stand it for very long. No matter how much Silver claims that Flint has been returned to an earlier state, nothing so central to the core of a man changes so quickly. If Flint is alive, it is only on his own terms. Only by his own hand.

She wants to know for herself where his journey has led him.

There is no going backward, no return to the past. There is no unloving someone. Silver had woken that man from his nightmare weeks ago, but insists that it was another man who had done the waking – so be it. He may have this insistence, if it helps him.

She knows better. She could read it all in the expressions on their faces before they knew it themselves, all the heartache and awful willingness to carve themselves to pieces for each other. Her love has never blinded her; she has come to believe that that happens only to men. It is the only reasonable conclusion she can draw after the past months, and she is so very tired of indulging the consequences.

“I can try,” Silver says, returning Madi to the present.

“Good,” she says, standing to brush the dust off her skirt, and leaves.

-

He still wishes that the books hadn’t burned. If he’d had the time, he would have buried them, the only treasure he’d stolen in eleven years that was worth saving. That, and perhaps the trust of a dishonest man, but he supposes he’ll never know for certain, now.

“We’ll build up a new library,” Thomas says, following his gaze to the single half-full bookshelf and, apparently, reading his mind. “Perhaps we can make a pilgrimage to Nassau with the young Miss Ashe and see what survived the fire.”

“Knowing our fortunes, very little,” James says.

“Then perhaps we can make a pilgrimage to Nassau and find these two people you’ve fallen so desperately for,” Thomas says, sitting down beside him and knocking their knees together. “And convince them to run away with us.”

“Thomas,” James says, a warning. There is still so much ground they haven’t yet had a chance to cover, between paying their way off the plantation, finding their own small cottage with the aid of none other than Abigail Ashe and her far more happy-go-lucky cousins, and the hundred-and-one other practical concerns that have had to be settled. James has to learn how to _farm_. The thought fills him with a strange sort of elation.

“You’re right,” Thomas says. “The princess would never run away from her people. We’ll have to find a way to bring them all here.”

“Thomas,” James repeats, with heavier emphasis.

“James,” Thomas says. “I lived ten years feeling nothing but empty, and I know you did the same only with more fire and brimstone. Now that you have the chance, don’t you want to steal all the happiness you can carry off?”

James smiles and takes Thomas’ hand to press a kiss to his knuckles, and it’s so easy now. It’s so instinctive that he marvels every time. “You’re all the happiness I need, and I’d lost hope of even this much a long time ago,” he says. “You know that.”

Thomas’s fingers squeeze his own briefly, but his voice is deliberately light. “Not very greedy, for a pirate,” he says. “One might almost think your restraint to be that of a Navy man.”

“Having been both, I think I’d rather be neither,” James returns. “A humble peach farmer, I think, will suit.”

“James,” Thomas needles.

“Thomas,” James says. “It’s for the best. I’m a dead man to everyone in Nassau and in the Maroon camp, and while I’ve been dead before, I think perhaps we might all be better off if this one sticks. Madi’s people need to rebuild and find new trading contacts, and I’m sure she’ll be on the front lines for that. Besides that, Silver and Madi will need time to come to terms with their own partnership, which I was never included in.”

Thomas huffs and mumbles something that sounds like ‘still the emotional density of a rock.’ He gets up and heads for the heavy desk in the other room, doubtless going to write another one of his longwinded letters to the proprietor of the plantation where he’d been kept. Apparently, the man had come to rely on Thomas to write most of his funding proposals. And to plan everything else.

 _You didn’t think this was all due to his oversight, did you?_ Thomas had asked, amused and gesturing to the fields outside, when they were trading stories half-awake on the first night, curled together in the dark. _Having some idea of who I was, who I had been, he approached me for advice after the project almost failed in the first year I was here. Advice on the funding, then on the land, then on the management. He gave me a voice in that place where all voices were muted, and I used it. I decided it was better to keep more of us alive here than dead or rotting in Bethlem. Or waging an unwinnable war against civilization._

Of course. Even imprisoned in a gilded cage at the behest of his own father, even torn from everything he knew, Thomas had his voice. Then again, more fool Alfred Hamilton for thinking that his cleverest son wouldn’t hold the key within a year.

Thomas wanders back into the room as James has moved on to mentally constructing another two bookshelves to match the first. He doesn’t know what the common types of wood here are – another thing to learn anew.

“There’s a letter for you,” Thomas says, holding out an envelope. “I didn’t notice it at first, but it was passed along from Nicholas’ estate yesterday. There’s no return address.”

The envelope is, in fact, addressed to James McGraw. He takes the parchment out, unfolds it to find Madi’s steady handwriting. “‘J. M. – I hope you will forgive this invasion of privacy, but I had to know for myself,’” he reads aloud, flips over the page. There’s nothing else. “That’s all it says.”

“Who’s it from?” Thomas asks, balancing his chin on James’ shoulder and scanning over the note.

“Madi,” James says. Those weeks ago, she had smiled so elatedly when Silver brought her into the light, unfolding towards the sun. She’d shined with as much brightness.

Thomas leans back to meet his eyes, and the corner of his mouth tilts ever-so-slightly up at whatever he finds there. “Well. It seems that all that superfluous happiness we discussed has decided, quite wisely, to meet you halfway. I suspect we’re getting a royal visit. Maybe she can bring us some more books.”

-

“Surely you must understand that I cannot lead you to them,” the man says, eyes flicking between Madi and Silver uncertainly.

He has been unsure who to look at since they walked in, the cripple or the African woman. Reform-minded, perhaps, but not quite that daring, Madi thinks. She doubts that a man like this singlehandedly built this enterprise.

“We are the ones who sent Mr. McGraw here,” Madi lies. She has become much better at it. “Surely _you_ must understand that we have every right to know where he is.” She bares her teeth and finishes with a brazen truth. “After all, we’re his family.”

Nicholas Hawkins sighs, gestures his men out of the room. Madi waits, and Silver waits, though his waiting is far more agitated. His fingers keep clenching and unclenching on the crutch. “‘Family,’” Hawkins says eventually, snorting. “You’re pirates, and a bloody nuisance. Regardless, Mr. McGraw and Mr. Hamilton are no longer at this estate.”

Silver’s hand stills. “Did we not pay you to hold him here?” Silver demands. “McGraw. What happened to ‘men who enter these gates never leave them?’”

Hawkins meets his stare coolly, and Madi raises her respect for him by a notch. “Mr. Hamilton and I had an accord, and Mr. McGraw had in his possession a small fortune in gemstones, apparently hidden on his person,” he says, then lowers his voice before continuing. “Men who enter these gates never leave them, but those two were no longer Thomas Hamilton and James Flint, were they? The men they’d been don’t exist anymore, except in our memories. And I think that all of us in this room know, Mr. Silver, that the infamous Captain Flint would have killed a good number of people had I tried to truly bar his way. I don’t have the men to spare on holding a hostage who God himself couldn’t hold, if any of the stories are to be believed,” he says, and leans back. “No. I chose to let them walk out.”

Madi keeps her amusement from showing on her face, keeps her mask on. It would seem that the name – the story – that Silver had tried so hard to outrun has come back to haunt him sooner than he’d expected.

Next to her, Silver has locked his jaw, one of his hands curled into a fist. She considers brushing her fingers against it, willing it to relax, and dismisses the notion. Perhaps this way will be more educational. “That begs the question,” Silver grinds out. “Where did they go?”

For someone so intent on pushing himself away from James Flint, he seems to have forgotten how to do it on their journey here. It could be that he wants to placate her, but the only things Madi can find in him now are steel and, under that, desperation. She wonders – does he even know how to name the creature which has made a home behind his ribs? Does he know where it lives?

“I really cannot tell you,” Hawkins says, and holds up a palm when Silver starts out of his chair. “Threaten me if you like, but it won’t do you any good. Thomas became a friend to me, and I’ll not have you interrupting a happiness he waited a decade for just to drag McGraw back with you to wherever you came from.”

“You would call a friend someone who is your prisoner?” Madi asks, dispassionate, before Silver can say anything.

Hawkins blinks at her. “Some of the best minds in London were cast out here,” he says. “I am an idealist, but I am no fool, Miss Scott. I need their friendship, or at least their understanding, if I want to avoid a riot on my hands. Frankly, I don’t have the manpower to threaten force against a large group, and between those two, they could have started an uprising here in under a week.”

A less brutal logic than that of a slaver. Then again, part of Madi still wants to take Silver’s sword and run this man through for all the suffering that he has indirectly been a part of. Perhaps the bloodthirstiness is a consequence of the pirates she’s fallen in with, she thinks ruefully. It used to be a much smaller voice in her mind.

Silver’s hand keeps inching towards his own weapons, probably without conscious effort. “You told me when Thomas Hamilton was here,” he says. “Isn’t it a small step to tell us where our friend has gone?”

Hawkins looks unimpressed. “You would call a friend someone who you chose to cast aside? Someone you had escorted here in handcuffs and didn’t even see past the gate?” he asks, shaking his head at Silver’s stricken expression. “No. I will not tell you. Please get out of my office.”

Silver hauls himself up, saying nothing, and makes his way out of the room.

“A different question,” Madi says, once the door has slammed shut. “Perhaps a simpler one. Did you pass along my letter, and the package that came after it?”

Hawkins just looks at her. He is a plain man, but maybe not a bad one. “Yes,” he says. “They did not bear your name, but I suppose I did. Nobody else is writing to Mr. McGraw.”

Madi gifts him with a smile. “Thank you,” she says, and follows Silver out.

They move down the path without speaking. The day is unusually warm for late March, and the crickets are a barrier of sound on either side of them. Past the gate, the horses are waiting where they’d left them. Silver still has not said a word. Madi thinks that if she leaves without him, he’ll stand here indefinitely, staring into the middle distance with the same desperate rage he’d been radiating towards Hawkins.

She clears her throat, and he jolts, looking up at her. The rage has disappeared in the space between moments, replaced by a confused sort of anguish. The desperation remains.

“We will return to Savannah and make inquiries about the Sea Islands,” she says. “You need to find out where Flint has gone, and I need to find a leader of the Creek people to meet with, to ensure we have a place of refuge.”

Silver is thrown by this – of course, he has not been privy to the midnight discussions between Madi, her mother, and Julius. Having done his part, he is no longer welcome at their table, where they have been throwing out backup plan after backup plan. A treaty with a power determined to destroy them for what they are, when that power knows exactly _where_ they are, cannot hold for a very long time, and Madi is best-positioned to build their defenses. To find a place they can retreat to, if they must.

“I have no idea how to find him. Them,” Silver says, wincing at the correction. He swallows audibly. “Or even if it’s right to do it. What if they’re happy? I – betrayed James. To turn him back into James McGraw, to kill the monster in the stories, I had to betray his trust. Why would he want to see me?”

“There was never a monster to kill, John. There was only a man, and he is still alive,” Madi says, abruptly exhausted. “He is still the same one you knew, and trusted, and did terrible things for. We’ll find him. We will find them.”

-

It’ll be peaches, James thinks, looking at the plot of land he’s drawn on the parchment and divided for an orchard and a garden. It’s warm enough here that the growing season is long, and Thomas has had years to learn one type of soil from another. He’ll teach James, and James will plant an orchard of peach trees and a garden of whatever else they need. The idea is probably more easy than the execution, but they can manage it. It’ll hardly be the most difficult thing he’s ever done.

Besides, he wants to prove that he can make things grow. He thinks it’s how Miranda must have felt, pulling weeds on New Providence Island – regaining a measure of control over his surroundings feels clean, like stepping into a cool, quick river.  

Thomas can teach children their letters until the orchard is self-sustaining; they still have the remainder of the gems that James had tucked into his boots, but it won’t last forever. He carefully doesn’t think about going back for the rest of the cache to assure them a comfortable life – the memories are too raw. _You won’t do it,_ he’d told Silver, stepping closer until the gun was pressed against his aching chest. _You can’t. So you’d better find a more convincing argument or put me in chains, because those are the only two outcomes I can foresee._

It hadn’t been one of his wiser gambits, but he hadn’t exactly been thinking clearly, clouded with heartbreak.

He pushes back to the present, to the house and the sunlight filtering through the windows. Perhaps it will take a long time for it to become a comfortable life, but it is their life. That’s enough. Thomas will have enough business from the town, since nobody here cares where Mr. Barlow came from as long as he’s well-read.

“What grows here?” he calls to Thomas, who is in the other room.

“Everything, as I’ve mentioned repeatedly,” Thomas says, walking in to stand by James’ shoulder and look at the diagram he’s drawn in neat lines. “What have you decided?”

“Peaches,” James says. “And the garden for anything else.”

“Pumpkins, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, green beans,” Thomas ticks off. “Raspberries, they’re Abigail’s favorite. Rosemary and basil. As long as there’s no sugarcane, I don’t want to see the godforsaken stuff ever again.”

“Still, an ambitious list. You have the seeds for all that?” James asks.

“Savannah is well-supplied,” Thomas replies, pressing a kiss against his temple. “And you’re the one who will be doing the planting, my dear, though you could take up teaching literature just as well as I and make a living that way.”

There’s a knock at the door before he can respond that he’s done teaching people who don’t want to learn – Thomas goes and opens it to reveal Nicholas Hawkins’ disheveled errand boy with one hand raised to knock again and the other clutching a parcel.

“Package for Mr. McGraw,” he says, unnecessarily, and hands it to Thomas.

“Thank you, Robert,” Thomas says, handing him a coin and closing the door. “Feels like a book.”

James takes the package and unwraps it to reveal his own tattered copy of _Don Quixote._ His chest is tight as he flips through it to find the same blue ribbon bookmark and the same torn corner on page 113. He’d thought that this burned with the house.

“That looks familiar,” Thomas says, leaning forward without putting his hands on it, hesitant to touch. He is careful with possessions, now, in a way he never had been – before.

“It’s the same one,” James confirms and hands it to him.

After running a reverent hand over the cover, Thomas flips to the inside page which James had skipped over. This book had never had anything written in it – but now it does, judging by Thomas’ raised eyebrow.

Thomas silently hands it back.

 _I am writing my own story now,_ the new inscription says, again in Madi’s hand. _In it, we will be happy._

-

There is a pale wisp of a girl sitting on a bench and watching them carefully as they get off their horses, as Silver pays to have them stabled.

She isn’t watching as if she means them any harm, only with a fierce curiosity. Her hands keep a book open in her lap, and her eyes linger on Silver’s leg. Madi pushes away the urge to step in front of him protectively. Some instincts are difficult to stifle.

She sees the moment that Silver spots the girl because he staggers, as if he’s been physically pushed, and quickly looks away. “This place is fucking cursed,” he mutters, scowling. “You really want to speak with any of its inhabitants? We’d probably have better luck looking for Flint if we just roamed the countryside.”

Madi gives him a look, and his expression becomes more abashed. The girl stands up and walks over to them, and Silver resolutely doesn’t look at her, instead focusing on the ground, even as she comes to stand at his side. His knuckles are pale where they hold his crutch.

“Mr. Silver. I had thought it was you,” the girl says. Silver says nothing, and she tilts her head, turning to Madi and curtseying politely. “My name is Abigail Ashe.”

The daughter of the man who killed Miranda; the same daughter whose diary had almost exonerated Flint in Charlestown. That explains Silver’s reaction, Madi thinks. “I am Madi,” she says, inclining her head.

“Thomas said you might be coming,” Abigail says.

“Did Thomas tell you to find us?” Silver asks. “How did he know?”

“I sent a letter ahead,” Madi says quietly. “It seems Mr. Hawkins had it sent along.”

Silver curses, and Abigail frowns at him. “Thomas didn’t tell me to meet you,” she says. “Thomas never _tells_ me to do anything, he’s not the type. Thomas asked me to finish reading this book, and I overheard him speaking with Mr. McGraw afterwards, so this morning I decided I’d do my reading outside. It’s a very nice day.”

The cover of the book, tilted towards Madi, declares it to be the full text of Cicero’s _De Officiis._ She likes this girl, she decides.

“Can you take us to them?” Madi asks. “We don’t know where they are staying.”

Abigail looks at her. “You know that Mr. McGraw – when he was Captain Flint – killed my father.”

Madi glances at Silver, who seems to be grasping for words. “Yes,” she says. “From what I understand, your father betrayed him a long time ago.”

“Yes. He wasn’t a very good man, my father. Thomas’ father wasn’t a good man, either, and Captain Flint killed him, too,” Abigail says, and turns to Silver. “The Hawkins plantation is where people go to disappear from the world; I know that because Mr. Hawkins was a family friend when I was very young. My guardian, my uncle, is friends with him, now.” She pauses, as if gathering her strength. “I’m fifteen, but that’s quite old enough to understand what happened. You sent Mr. McGraw there to disappear, Mr. Silver, which is what Thomas’ father did to him seven years ago. You could have gotten them both out. Why should I tell you anything about where they are, when you’re the one who consigned them to the shadows?”

Silver chokes on an exhale and closes his eyes. Madi relents, and puts a grounding hand on his shoulder. “Tell me, then,” she says to Abigail. “I had no role in the decision, and I would see him again if I could.”

Abigail meets her eyes, looking for something Madi does not know if she’ll find. To have survived the cruelty of men like Ned Low and Charles Vane, then the death of the only close family she had here, and still to fiercely protect two men whose natures she cannot truly comprehend – this girl reminds her, unsettlingly, of Eleanor. It is an unexpected discovery in this place.

Finally, Abigail purses her lips, and nods. “Thomas is tutoring me in French and Latin thrice a week. I can bring you along when I go tomorrow morning,” she says. She glances at Silver again and glances back to Madi, questioning.

“He will come as well,” Madi says. Silver’s hand is still tight on his crutch, and so she presses down lightly on his shoulder until his posture loosens by a fraction.

“Very well,” Abigail says, clearly dubious. “We can meet here at eight o’clock. It’s about half an hour’s ride on the southwest road. I’ll tell my cousins that someone else will be escorting me.”

“Won’t they take issue with leaving a fifteen-year-old girl in the company of strangers?” Silver asks.

“Nobody takes issue with me doing anything, anymore, Mr. Silver, so I’ll thank you not to concern yourself,” Abigail says, and turns to leave. She tucks her book under her arm, walking with perfect posture and all the false confidence of someone determined to pretend a new place is just as comfortable as an old one.

When she’s far enough down the street, Silver whirls on Madi. That same desperation she saw earlier is painted all over his face – now that the goal is in sight, he doesn’t want to know what’s in store for him. Perhaps he doesn’t want to know how much he broke, or perhaps he knows already and just doesn’t want the confirmation.

It’s a very good thing that Madi is willing to drag him, kicking and screaming, back into the happiness that he was not wise enough to keep.

“Abigail’s seen them, don’t you have your proof that I didn’t lie? She clearly doesn’t want me along – maybe I should stay and make some contacts on the docks. And don’t you need to find a tribal leader?” Silver asks, voice low.

“I need a great many things, John Silver,” she replies. “At this moment, I need you to find an inn where we can sleep. In the morning, I will need you to stop playing the coward that I wish to believe you aren’t. The coward that you weren’t, when we spoke with Nicholas Hawkins this morning. And the coward that you cannot be if you want to earn my forgiveness.”

-

“I truly don’t know why they would come here,” James admits into Thomas’ shoulder, after they’ve blown out the candles and put away the books, when all that’s left is the two of them, and the night. “There is so much for them to repair. Silver was so determined to put it all to rest, put the war to rest. To make the idea of ‘Captain Flint’ into something less threatening. I’m what remains of those things.”

Thomas turns to face him, eyes glinting in the moonlight that has filtered into the room. “You came to trust each other under circumstances that meant that trust could end your life,” he says. “That’s a difficult thing to put to rest.”

“I know,” James says. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to.”

Thomas shrugs one shoulder. “Why should you have to?”

Any number of reasons fly through his mind at the question, and he knows that none of them are reasons Thomas will accept. He grimaces.

“James,” Thomas says, and the laughter hiding in his eyes hasn’t changed in a decade. Even if Thomas had personally witnessed him killing men in cold blood, James thinks he’d still touch him as gently. Still look at him as fondly. James is in constant shock that he gets to hoard such a staggering amount of joy for himself. “I suspect that one of them must have enough sense to realize that losing you forever would be a travesty to anyone. Let alone to those you gave yourself to completely.”

“You’ve always had me, completely,” James points out.

“And you, me,” Thomas says, unperturbed. “But you and I both know that the heart is vast, with room for many people in it. You love someone, or you do not, and each time you do, it is complete. It doesn’t happen in halves.”

James just looks back at him, helpless with the bolt of affection that runs him through, before pressing their lips together carefully. Thomas smiles into it. They’ve both relearned the skill.

For a long time, they stay close together, sharing air, until Thomas rolls back over and presses his back to James’ front, broad and warm. “Go to sleep,” Thomas says. “The morning will be brighter, and you’ll sort it out. You’ll see.”

-

The sun here is worse in the morning than the sun of her island, Madi thinks. Its bite is stronger and the air feels damp and heavy. She’s impressed at how well Abigail manages in her stays and multiple skirts, when Madi herself has long given in and changed for light trousers and a thin cotton blouse. Admittedly, it makes her feel a bit like one of the pirates.

Silver has thrown his jacket into the back of the small cart they’re in, and is riding his horse a few feet ahead. _If I’m to share a cart built for two people with the two of you, I think one of you might push me off within ten minutes. What’s worse is that I’m not sure which of you it would be,_ he’d said before they left, making Madi laugh despite herself.

The cart jolts through a puddle which apparently concealed a deeper hole, and the horse snorts and tugs them through it. This is a very wet country, Madi thinks, wrinkling her nose. Wet and green.

“Why are the two of you really here?” Abigail asks, quiet enough that only Madi hears her. “What are you hoping to say to them?”

Madi had been wondering when she would ask. She feels the ghost of a smile pass over her face. “You care very much for these men you hardly know.”

“I know that James McGraw took me away from an awful place at great cost to himself,” Abigail says. “I know I told him my father would not listen to reason, and he and Miranda went anyway, because they believed that they had a chance to create a better future. I know Thomas Hamilton was the kindest man we knew in London when I was young, and I know he’s somehow held onto that kindness for all this time.” She hesitates, then continues. “Do I need to know exactly who they were and what they did? The terrible things they may have done, the terrible prices they may have paid? I know the men they are now. Is that not enough?”

She asks as if she already has the only answer she’ll believe. “Perhaps it can be,” Madi says, and the truth in her own voice catches her off-guard.

“Then you know why I ask,” Abigail says. “What do you want from them?”

“We do not want James to go back to the account,” Madi says. “He has the right to choose his own life, and if this is what he wants, then so be it.”

Abigail furrows her brow. “Then why?”

Madi exhales slowly. The road here is forested, and they pass through occasional clouds of gnats, but the way that the light dapples the path is undeniably beautiful. “I think that if we go to them now, we may all end up happier, and that chance will not exist forever,” she says at last. “I think Silver did not ask me before he made the decision to push James away, and I think he will never forgive himself if everything between us, or between them, is broken by that. I think he is so afraid of that outcome that he wanted to stay back in Savannah rather than risk any further loss.” She smiles slightly. “This is a lesson to you: all men are fools, and plans inevitably fall apart if left to them.”

Abigail laughs, a chime in the woods. “You know,” she says, “Eleanor Guthrie told me something very similar, when she rescued me from the fort in Nassau.”

A knot of grief sticks in Madi’s throat, and she swallows it down. She’s had some time to come to terms with this particular loss, of a sister she’d never known as well as she could have. “She was a good woman,” she says.

Abigail nods, and they come to a clearer stretch. “We’re almost there,” she says, loud enough that Silver hears it as well. He glances back and nods, eyes lingering on Madi before he looks back at the road. His eyes always linger on her – they always have.

“You must love each other very much,” Abigail says.

“How do you know?” Madi asks, startled.

Abigail smiles at her. “You want to fix all of his mistakes because you want to steal happiness for both of you, even though you’re angry with him,” she says. “You want to push the boundaries of the world so that you can live in it together, and he loves you enough to stand by you through that. Isn’t that what love is?”

Madi blinks. From the mouths of children. “I suppose so,” she says.

Silver has drawn up short, ahead of them, hands frozen in the reins. “Is that it?” he asks, gesturing at a small cottage in the middle of the half-plowed field that has come up on their right.

“There aren’t any other houses on this stretch of the road, Mr. Silver,” Abigail says, and hops down from the cart to lead the horse to a tree. Madi steps down as well, and Silver unbuckles his crutch from the saddle and follows suit, going to tie his own horse up.

He returns to Madi’s side, and they watch as Abigail takes her books out of the cart one at a time, rummaging around for a final volume. “I don’t think she’s ever going to like me,” Silver says, frowning at Abigail’s back.

“You will have to earn it,” Madi agrees.

“Come along,” Abigail says, waving impatiently for them to follow her down the path to the cottage. “My cousins inherited this property ages ago and did nothing with it, and when I said my Latin tutor and his cousin were in need of a place to stay, they didn’t ask further questions. They aren’t a terribly curious side of our family.”

The dirt path goes down the center of the field, half of it shorn down and made ready for planting, and half still wild with tall grass. Madi wonders what they’ll grow here. It’s a good climate for growing.

There’s barely room for two abreast on the path, so Abigail leads the way, Madi following and Silver close behind. She can feel her heart speed up, knowing that they’re almost at their destination. They’re almost at the point where they find out what comes next.

Abigail knocks, and they hear a muffled voice call, “Thomas, Abigail’s here!” before the door opens to reveal James McGraw, squinting into the sunlight and holding a familiar, tattered blue book. He’s not wearing any shoes or, for once, any weapons – only trousers and a white linen shirt. She supposes being a pirate for a decade tends to obliterate one’s sense of propriety.

“Thank you,” Abigail says, and walks past him into the house. Madi sees the exact moment James notices them because his eyes go wide and the book falls from his grasp, and she can’t help grinning, mask falling away as she half-runs the final steps and catches him in an embrace.

His hands hesitate before settling on her back and pressing her close. He is warm and very real, and she cannot think how anyone ever named him a monster. “I am so glad that you are not dead,” she says, moving back.

“I find myself gladder every day to not be. It’s good to see you,” James says, smiling. His eyes stray to Silver, who looks like he’s been paralyzed. “Both of you. I must admit I – didn’t think I would again.”

He and Silver are just watching each other, now. Madi steps aside, and James walks forward, as if moving through a dream. Silver is standing completely still, but his chest rises and falls rapidly. James comes to stand in front of him, stocking feet silent in the dirt, and reaches out a hand to clasp.

Silver’s face goes through a complicated series of expressions – she sees pain, affection, desperation – and finally settles on an overwhelming relief as he takes James’ hand.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” a low voice says behind her. She turns to see a very tall white man with exasperated fondness written all over him leaning in the doorway and watching the scene unfold. This must be Thomas.

James is too far to hear him, but as if he had, he uses their joined hands to pull Silver into his arms, and Silver visibly lets go, burying his face in James’ neck and clutching at him. His mouth forms a silent mantra – Madi can read the ‘I’m sorry’ he’s repeating on his lips. James just keeps holding him, and holding him.

“Well,” Thomas says after a few seconds, and nods at her. “Do come inside, your Highness. Abigail and I are taking tea, and I’m sure James and Mr. Silver need a moment to come to terms.”

“You may call me Madi,” she says. “I am glad to finally meet you. And thank you for all of this, and that, as well.” She tilts her head at the entwined figures on the path.

“Then you can call me Thomas,” he says, moving back into the cottage and picking up the copy of _Don Quixote_ that James had dropped. “And I’ve never been a jealous man. It would be especially unfair to start now, when every ounce of happiness is an unforeseen gift. Thank you for the book, by the way.”

She follows him into the main room, where the air is hot from the sun but the breeze from the windows is cool with morning. He walks to the kettle and pours a cup of tea, holding it out to her. Abigail’s cup sits steaming at her side where she’s already curled in a corner armchair, reading.

“I thought he might want it back. It was a well-worn edition,” Madi says, taking the cup. She runs a finger around the edge, and decides on honesty, here, where the road has led her. “Nicholas Hawkins was unwilling to tell us where you were. I think perhaps he thought we were coming to take Captain Flint back to Nassau.”

“Little did he know. So it was Abigail’s engineering that brought you to our door,” Thomas says.

“You’re welcome,” Abigail says, not looking up from her book.

“Yes, it was,” Madi says. She hesitates, but presses onward – she wants to know. “Hawkins seemed to consider you a friend.”

Thomas cradles his own cup of tea, before sighing and meeting her eyes. “Nicholas Hawkins isn’t a bad man,” he says eventually. “You must understand, after three years in Bethlem, the Hawkins plantation was an enormous relief. Seeing sunlight without wearing any chains was an enormous relief. I was grateful to Nicholas – and still am – for that refuge, even insofar as it was still a prison. There was a small wage and we had small comforts, proper beds and proper meals; it took me years to convince Nicholas to allow us more. Books, and games, and laughter. I was one of the first people there, and it was more than I’d expected to have ever again.”

“A kindly jailer is still a jailer,” Madi says. Abigail has ceased in her page-turning, no longer even pretending not to listen.

Thomas nods. “But a kindly jailer is one who can be convinced to be better,” he says, taking a deep breath and letting it out, eyes far away. “James and I paid an incredible price when I tried to change the world too quickly. The same price, I think, that your Mr. Silver was attempting to avoid.”

“The world is too strong for that,” Madi murmurs, thinking of the words her mother had passed to her from Julius. She thinks that this man would get along with them well.

“Yes. It’s taken me years to come around to the idea that it can still be done at a slower pace,” Thomas says. “Brick by brick. I thought about it constantly in Bethlem – had we really been so weak that when we pushed on the fabric of society, it sprang back instead of tearing? Had the only true recourse been a slower path, with little sacrifices like beestings all along the way, until we learned to live with their constant drumbeat? Now, I think that may be the only way to do it without unfathomable loss. A man, or ten men, or even a hundred aren’t enough to defeat an empire. Not now. Perhaps in the years of your children, or your children’s children. For now, the only way forward is incremental, so that by the time anyone notices, they’ll already be accustomed to the changes.”

It is a good argument, and has much to commend it, including the fact that all four of them remain alive today. And yet. “A far less grand vision than the one I am told you originated in London, all those years ago,” Madi says.

Thomas smiles. “Is it? I don’t think so,” he says. “If it is, I traded it in for a happier one. I traded it in for the one I could bear to live with.”

“But those small sacrifices add up,” Madi says. “They become difficult to abide.”

“Yes,” Thomas says. “But when you have someone to share them with, it’s not so heavy a burden.”

-

Later, once Abigail has gone on her way back to town – Thomas had shortened their lesson and promised to have extra time for her during their next instead – Madi stands on the back porch of the house and looks out at the field, turning over Thomas’ words. Perhaps it is better this way. Perhaps it is better to change the world piece by piece, leaving room for kindness and joy to spring up through the cracks in the stonework, even as you are laying it.

She does not know whether it truly is the best path, but she thinks it is at least an end she can see. It is one she can bring, with her people at her side. With James and Thomas offering her counsel.

In time, with Silver behind her, as well.

Silver had stood outside for a long time after James had come back into the house. When Madi walked out to him after she spoke with Thomas, he’d said, wonderingly, _he forgave me. He saw through me to my core and he forgave me, even after all the lies and all the betrayal. I hadn’t realized that he – I hadn’t realized. I hadn’t allowed myself to consider the possibility._

There is no unloving someone, she thinks. Once it has happened, there is no return to a previous state, and only a fool could convince himself otherwise.

Silver emerges from the house and comes to stand next to her, setting his crutch down and leaning against the rail.

“James said that Thomas has had a running correspondence with the Ossabaw Creek for the past few weeks, since they left the estate,” he says after a few minutes. “He’s been working out a plan to teach some of their children so they can translate for the elders, apparently, and better avoid conflict with the colonists. He can find you a contact.”

“Good,” Madi says. It seems he has at last recovered his capacity for speech.

“We’ll have to go back to the island soon, but we have a standing invitation – if negotiations with the Creek go well, we’ll be here regularly, and–”

“You are still not forgiven,” Madi interrupts him, and his mouth snaps shut. She looks away, breathes in, and meets his eyes again. “You are still a fool for what you traded away, John Silver. But you loved us well, and I can no longer find it in myself to begrudge you that.”

A small smile appears on his face and he holds out a tentative hand. She takes it, interlacing their fingers. “Thank you,” he says. “One day, I’ll earn it. You know I’ll wait forever, if I have to.”

“I don’t think it’ll take quite that long,” James says, appearing at John’s side and pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth. Something warm and sweet uncurls in Madi’s chest at the gesture. “Come back in, there’s breakfast.”

John is frozen in surprise by the touch for only a moment before he recovers. “It’s two in the afternoon,” he points out.

Thomas’ head appears in the doorway. “Haven’t you heard, Mr. Silver?” he asks, eyes crinkled with laughter. “We’re starting our own story now. We get to live by our own rules.”

 _You can be happy with a life of isolation and uncertainty, if it is lived with someone you love, and who loves you back_. She has held onto these words. She will make them true; she has been lucky to steal such a wealth of love in her life, and she will see that it grows.

This story, she knows, is only beginning. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are much appreciated, and you can find me and yell with me about pirates [here on Tumblr](https://keensers.tumblr.com) <3


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